Working to let go and live in peace, Part II

"To Western or comfortable people, surrender and letting go sounds like losing. But it’s actually accessing a deeper, broader sense of the self, which is already whole, already content, already filled with abundant life."

It's going deep to find more. The true richness of life and love and giving and sacrifice.

"It’s the part of you that is Love, and all we have to do is let go and fall into it. It’s already there. Once you move your identity to that level of deep inner contentment and compassion, you realize that you’re drawing upon a Life that is larger than your own, and from a deeper Abundance. Once you learn to do that, why would you ever again settle for some scarcity model for life?"

It starts to fill us up, when we do this. It starts to replace the deep fear, the deep worry, the overwhelming obsession with our precious adult children who are off the rails for whatever reason, homeless, mentally ill, drug addicted, lawbreaking, disrespectful, immature, almost impossible to be around...it starts to replace this, and we are somehow able, and growing more and more able every day, if we keep on here...to let go of them, and give them over to our Higher Power or the Universe or Nature or all that is good, or whatever your own beliefs are...and we are able to start to find peace.

But like Rohr says below:

"But sadly, we continually do just that. The scarcity model is the way we’re trained to think: “I am not enough. This is not enough. I do not have enough.” So we try to attain more and more, and climb higher and higher. Thomas Merton said we may spend our whole life climbing the ladder of success, only to discover that when we get to the top our ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. Wow!"

And he is not just talking about financial success or professional success, but getting all of our "stuff" straight, so we are then okay and we are good. Like our kids. We have to get them straightened out because not to do so.......is.......what? Not the way people are supposed to live. Not contributing to society. Not making their own way. Not pleasant to be around. Not.....whatever it is....fill in the blank.

So we HAVE to do it. We have to keep trying and trying and trying and trying. We can't GIVE UP! We have no idea how to give up on somebody we love so much, right? And after all, if we don't, they might die or stay in jail forever or be homeless or lay in a crack house completely out of it or whatever it is they are doing.

More from Rohr---he is talking now about a tool that can be used to gain more of this:

"A daily practice of contemplative prayer can help you fall into the Big Truth that we all share, the Big Truth that is God, that is Grace itself, where you are overwhelmed by more than enoughness! The spiritual journey is about living more and more in that abundant place where you don’t have to wrap yourself around your hurts, your defeats, your failures; but you can get practiced in letting go and saying “That’s not me. I don’t need that. I’ve met a better self, a truer self.”

Again, you see the focus in the words above is on US. On Me. Not on somebody else. It's about me learning to let go, let God (Higher Power), let go of my expectations, my needs for success for myself and all those around me, my deep fears, my insecurities, my obsessions, my anger and resentments, whatever is keeping me stuck in this place...working to let it go.

And as I let it go, I move to a place called Peace. It is a wonderful place, and I want to stay there more and more.

Peace from wondering and obsessing about what my homeless son is doing right now, today. Over whether he will go to treatment, stop using drugs, be safe, find good people somewhere to be friends with, not die, not get sick or get disabled or lose his potential or be in jail for a short time or a long time, go to college, get a good job, find a place to live, have enough to eat.

Peace...the ability to say, on the next yesterday from him that said: I had a background check done for a job and it came back that I was still incarcerated.

To be able to say: I'm sure you will figure it out. Would you like to get together for your birthday Sunday?

Just to let it go. He will have to figure his life out, and I have to figure my life out. And that is a full time job and it's all about learning how to let go. And that takes so much work, so much work that I will not have the time and energy and need to meddle in his life and to try to "fix" his life and make it all better somehow. Because there are so many reasons why that is wrong, today, with this 25-year-old man who is my son.

I wish for myself the ability to keep moving forward on this journey to become a better person. That is my wish today, right now.

We are here with you on your journey of self-discovery. Thank you for this post, for your musings, your thoughts, and the quotes from Rohr. I know we come at this from different places, but the journey is quite amazingly the same...for all of us, all humans, really

My meditation instructor gave me the gift of this. I used to beat myself up for my wandering thoughts, chattering monkey brain during attempts at meditation. He released me from that..he said our minds wander because it is the nature of minds to wander. They wander...because we have a mind. When we note the wandering, no need to do anything, to force yourself back to anything. It is enough to note it, because ...you are already there.

We bring our own peace, our own solace, with us always. In meditation it is the breath that is always there. WE are already there. No need to run about searching. We are already there.

I have a piece of calligraphy from Thich Nhat Hahn... it says "you have enough" That is all it says. IN my mind I finish it with "to be happy right now." YOu have enough to be happy right now. I find that so comforting. It was such an eye-opener. Because I do have enought...and as above, it is with me all the time. I think for you, Child, it may be the higher power that is with you, or maybe your own resilience, or the love of your SO, or the love of your two boys...but I know that you have it with you always, its already there. You have enough.

Peace...the ability to say, on the next yesterday from him that said: I had a background check done for a job and it came back that I was still incarcerated.
To be able to say: I'm sure you will figure it out. Would you like to get together for your birthday Sunday?

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I love this! Good for you! It is perfect that you were in a space to receive his text in this manner. You remained intact, true to yourself, not the seeking running dancing woman you described in part 1. THe new Child. The one was always there, but now you are nurturing her, valuing her. I love this!

I wish for myself the ability to keep moving forward on this journey to become a better person. That is my wish today, right now.

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There was another thread about "how has having a difficult child affected you" or changed you, or something like that. Several of us posted that it had made us kinder or better people. I don't know that it made me that, but my desperation over difficult child did lead me to deeper contemplation, to a deeper practice.

I think there is also an age component to this...we are in the second half of our lives, clearly. That is a time that people, especially women, start to contemplate what it is all about, what we are all about, how we want to spend our time. Face it, when the kids were little and our jobs were new and the marriage was a struggle...who had the time to contemplate?? I've heard it said that depression is a first world luxury (I don't actually think that is true, I think it is situational and biochemical and people the world over get depressed) but the phenomenon of lying in bed in misery doesn't happen in places where you have to walk three miles to fetch water, then fetch wood, then boil the water before you kids can go to school. IN the same way we could not afford to contemplate before. It has come at the time in our lives when it was meant to come.

I wish for you as well the ability to keep moving forward on your journey to become a better person.

thank you COM and you too echo, for sharing the journey and words of wisdom and also for the trip down memory lane...

thought kindly of an old friend who I lost touch with 25 years ago who deliberately could fit all his worldly goods into a duffel bag... he truly understood the idea of letting it all go

remembered what the doctor said when the ulcers almost took me down ... "you can't be the perfect mother, perfect employee, perfect student, perfect housekeeper"; his diagnosis for me was "supermom burnout" - my son was only 3 years old at the time.

getting ready for these cable installer guys to get here and trying to clear paths thru the basement to get to what they need to access and thinking wow all this material crap I have accumulated... stuff don't want, don't need, never gonna need and don't know anyone who would need... trash day isn't till Thursday but have put several boxes out at the curb labeled "free stuff"... smiled when I heard one person who stopped say "oh wow this is just what I needed" - whatever is left on trash night if usable I'll drop off at the thrift store and hopefully they can find homes for it.

there is a lot to be said for letting go; there is such an emotional burden to keeping all of it... the weight of it all can be crippling. Thank you again you have both helped me more then I could ever describe here.

Thanks for your great and wise posts, ladies. It got me thinking. Letting go of my grown children's lives and focusing on my own has changed me immensely. I not only let go of their emotions, but I let go of the expectations others have of me and am very comfortable moving from a house to a small apartment and getting rid of most of my belongings and just living in a minimalistic way. Just like living the lives through others does not make us peaceful or happy, neither does having a car for others to envy or a big house that you really don't need anymore. I have learned to let go of everything superficial an d focus on my peace of mind, my serenity, the beauty of life that you can't buy, like the sky and trees and flowers, things I was too busy or stressed out to notice before. (Of course I slip up but not as often as I expected.)

I thank you all for helping me learn that letting go is such a positive experience and can set a person free to see what is truly important and what has always been there that we may have ignored. Your posts here were all amazing.

We had friends visit this weekend, friends with a easy child who is difficult child's age. And of course the inevitable "complaining" (read thinly disguised bragfest) started about how hard it was to wait to see if easy child got into that fabulous summer internship that is going to lead to a great job, how angry they are that easy child didn't buckle down to make the Dean's List last semester, etc.

My reaction initially was my usual bitter "Wanna trade?" thoughts, but then I read your 2 posts here, COM, and for the first time I think I finally saw that those friends are not very different from me at all.

If we did somehow perform a cosmic trade, I would be exactly where they are now...which is where I already AM, which is identifying WAY TOO MUCH with another adult living his life. The easy child/difficult child comparison is really beside the point. The issue is ME, with what I am getting out of glomming onto something/someone long after it's time to let go.

I believe letting go is a theme of life and we arrive there in different vehicles. Or we don't take the ride at all. I know folks who utilize meditation to free their minds, or yoga, or working out, or forms of bodywork, therapy, being of service.......approaches to unleash our minds from the relentless pursuit of acquisition, striving, controlling, fixing, knowing, understanding, whatever we employ to keep ourselves stuck and separate from our deeper, more authentic, soul driven selves.

I don't think one way is better then another. If we take the journey, the destination is the same, freedom, peace, aliveness, a lightness of being and the ability to be present with an open heart.

This path we are on here, in my belief, is a spiritual journey of awakening, of becoming conscious of our own fears, the places we judge and control........of allowing our own higher selves to prevail.........learning to let go of what we've been taught is the truth to find a deeper truth of who we really are. And, for many of us, our difficult child's brought us here. Often I think the term difficult child is absolutely true. A gift to bring us to ourselves, to bring us "home."

It's certainly not easy to see it that way.

For me though, that's been the truth. My entire family has been 'teaching' me this lesson. In order to find that peace, I've had to let go of so much, members of my family, concepts I thought were the truth, beliefs, judgements, deep desires, many, many attachments. But, the most profound awakening has been around my daughter, my only child, the one person who I am connected to in ways that are not even describable, as I imagine most of us here feel.

And, to inch by inch, let go, suffering the agonies of the damned with each inch.............yet in the letting go find a release, a relief, a BIG LET GO inside, releasing me from some dark place of controlling I didn't even know I was living in. Inch by inch, fear lessened and love blossomed. Love within me, for me............ where that 'not enoughness' used to live, 'enough' has moved in.

I didn't think I would ever day this, but I am grateful for this journey. I've been through hell and back. Like many of us here. It's good to see the light, to feel the warmth, to be present for all of it.........